


Like A Sail's Force Into The Night

by torakowalski



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Gen, Phil Coulson and the Ducklings, Team Building, Ward is secretly Grumpy Cat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-13
Updated: 2013-12-13
Packaged: 2018-01-04 12:49:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1081212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torakowalski/pseuds/torakowalski
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which there is terrible coffee, board games, and team bonding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like A Sail's Force Into The Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [philote_auctor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/philote_auctor/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide! May your day be full of awkward SHIELD agents bonding.
> 
> With thanks to my beta, who knows who she is, for her super-fast work :)

Jemma never used to have any trouble sleeping. She’d come home from long days in the lab, fall into bed, and sleep like the dead until her alarm went off (or Fitz let himself into her room and woke her up with his latest brainwave, whichever happened earliest). 

To be fair, she has very little trouble sleeping on the Bus normally, either. But they’ve travelled through seven time zones this week, and the jetlag has finally kicked in. She’s been staring at her ceiling for hours and has grown bored of it. 

Maybe she should stick some stars up there. That would look lovely.

Someone clears their throat outside her door and she rolls her eyes, kicking her duvet back and waiting for Fitz.

He doesn’t come in. No one comes in. Someone stands around for a minute, then wanders off in the direction of the common room, rather than the sleeping area.

Excited by the idea of someone else being awake and potentially willing to talk to her, Jemma climbs out of bed and grabs her dressing gown, shoving her feet into slippers before opening her door.

The door mechanism makes an extra loud whooshing noise in the dark, and she automatically whispers, “Sorry,” to anyone she might have woken up.

No one whispers back, so she decides she probably isn’t in trouble, and makes her way along to the common room.

The lights are off in here, so Jemma keeps walking, assuming that whoever it is who is wandering around is probably getting a drink from the kitchen.

She almost jumps out of her skin when a voice says, “Can’t sleep?” from the darkness.

“Oh my God,” she says, spinning around and clamping a hand to her chest. “Agent Ward?”

He was sitting in one of the leather chairs by the window, now he stands up, a grey shadow in the darkness. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“No, no. No, no, no.” Jemma flaps a hand at him. “No, that’s fine. You didn’t. I always expect to find people… sitting… in the dark… brooding. Were you brooding?”

“I was just thinking,” he says, as though that’s a much more normal thing to have chosen to do in the dark.

“Of course,” Jemma says brightly. “Why not?” She reaches over and flicks on the light switch, dousing the room in bright light. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“No,” Ward says slowly, in a way that she thinks means he does mind. Oh well, she’ll just keep ploughing on and pretend she didn’t notice. That normally works.

“I am going to make some coffee,” she decides. “Would you like some?”

“At three in the morning?” Ward asks, raising an eyebrow. “You’ll never get back to sleep.”

“No, I won’t,” Jemma agrees, and doesn’t tell him that she hasn’t slept at all yet. Ward worries about them, as strange an idea as that is, and he’s worried about her even more ever since that silly incident with the Chitauri virus and the parachute. “So. Coffee?”

“Sure,” Ward agrees, and follows her into the kitchen.

One of Jemma’s least favourite things about being on the Bus is that it’s impossible to make a decent cup of tea. They have a boiling water tap rather than a kettle and everyone knows that that’s not the same.

Well, Fitz drinks it, but Fitz is _Scottish_ and Jemma has learnt to make allowances for that.

The coffee, though, is delicious. She loves to come in here and play with the coffee maker. It’s soothing. Even when she doesn’t want a cup, she can normally convince Skye to drink it.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Ward asks, looking dubious while Jemma pours milk into a part of the coffee machine that is perhaps not precisely designed for milk.

“Absolutely,” Jemma says, and shoots him a smile. “I’m a scientist.”

Ward still seems uncertain, but he nods like he’ll concede her point and leans back against the kitchen counter, watching. 

It occurs to Jemma, belatedly, that she’s standing around in her pyjamas and a not very thick dressing gown, probably with a terrible case of bed hair, while a very attractive and muscly man stands next to her in a very attractive and muscly way.

It’s the sort of thing she should probably be bothered about, but isn’t bothered about at all.

Her grandmother would be so appalled. 

“What are you thinking about?” Jemma asks, after neither of them has said anything for a while. 

She says it with only half her attention actually focused Ward’s way, because she’s so used to sharing a lab with Fitz, where he’ll announce that he’s been thinking and she’ll ignore him for a while then finally let him tell her what he’s been thinking about. It doesn’t occur to her that it might be a rather probing question until Ward fails to answer.

“Oh.” She looks up. “Sorry. You don’t have to tell me, not if you don’t want to. I’ll just keep making coffee. Mmm, coffee.”

“No, it’s okay.” Ward shrugs. He’s wearing a grey longsleeved t-shirt. It looks very soft and somehow makes _him_ look softer. Like a teddy bear. Or a teddy bear that’s very good at killing people, anyway. “I was thinking about today’s mission.”

“I _know_ ,” Jemma says, abandoning the coffee machine to gesture at him enthusiastically. “Wasn’t that amazing? The manipulation of the subatomic particles alone that was required just to hold her molecular density in - ”

“I was thinking more about all the people she accidentally injured before we got there,” Ward interrupts.

Oh. Jemma deflates. Blast. “Yes. Yes, that was terrible.” She sounds insincere; she knows she does, even though she’s not. It was terrible. But like Ward said, they hadn’t reached the poor girl by that point, hadn’t had a chance to help her with her spontaneous superpowers, so what’s the point in dwelling?

Also, the mutation really was very exciting.

“I think the coffee’s ready?” Ward says, nudging her. He tips his head, frowning slightly. “At least, it’s smoking.”

Jemma spins back around, snatching the coffee cups out from under the twin spouts and blowing on them until the fire - really, just a _tiny_ amount of fire - has gone out. 

“Goodie,” she says, happily. “These are perfect.”

Ward looks slightly dubious - she’s quite proud of the fact it’s only slightly; how far he’s come - but takes the coffee when she wiggles the cup invitingly.

He looks at her, lifts the cup to his mouth again and hesitates.

Jemma bounces a little, trying to look encouraging.

Ward takes a sip of coffee, pauses, then swallows.

“Good?” Jemma asks hopefully. 

He looks at her for a long second. “Yeah… Good,” he says and puts the cup down.

“Oh, yay.” Jemma smiles. “I’m so glad. Fitz said it tasted like overripe goat’s cheese, but what does he know?”

“Right,” Ward agrees. “Goat’s cheese. You going back to bed, now?”

Jemma thinks about, but she really is wide awake. “No, I don’t think so. You?”

For some reason, Ward smiles. It’s not much of a smile but then Ward never really grins. He definitely turns his lips up in a way that lights up his eyes though. It’s rather charming. “No, I don’t think so either. How do you feel about board games?”

“I love board games,” Jemma says, reaching out and catching his sleeve. “Come on.”

***

Twenty minutes later, Jemma and Ward are engaged in a cutthroat game of Jenga and she is just starting to wonder if it might be nicer to start calling him Grant.

Then he somehow manages to remove a second block from the very bottom of the tower without anything falling over and she decides that no, Agent Ward he is and Agent Ward he will remain. As punishment. Mental punishment. Inside her own head, only.

Ward makes a somewhat unattractive crowing noise, and juggles with two of the Jenga pieces until he remembers that Jemma is watching, and then he drops them both as though they’ve burnt him.

Jemma hides her smile behind her drawn up knees and leans over to take her turn.

“See, I told you I heard a noise.” Skye’s voice floats along to them, then she and May appear in the doorway. 

The sound startles Jemma so badly that she knocks over the whole tower with one sweep of her elbow and swears under her breath.

May nods, casting her eyes over Jemma and Ward and raising her eyebrows. “So I see,” she says.

Jemma doesn’t know why she blushes. She and Ward aren’t doing anything compromising; they aren’t even thinking about doing anything compromising. At least, she isn’t.

She casts a quick look at Ward. No, she’s fairly sure he isn’t either.

“What? Did you hear a noise and go running to Mommy?” Ward asks, that slightly mean edge to his voice that means he’s grumpy for some reason. Ward is often grumpy for some reason; they’ve all stopped taking it personally.

Skye tosses her head and plants her hands on her hips. “Obviously not, because you were out here.” She grins. “Get it? You’re Mommy. May’s like… May’s Cat Woman but cooler.”

“Thank you,” May says slowly. “I think.”

“You’re welcome.” Skye grins at her cheekily, then flops down on the floor next to Ward. “What are you crazy kids doing?”

“Why is everyone awake?” Ward seems like he’s asking the heavens rather than any of them specifically. 

“Aww. Are we interrupting your quiet solitude of brooding?” Skye leans into his side and elbows his ribs while pretending to be making herself comfortable. Jemma tucks her dressing gown more firmly under her curled up legs and wishes she knew how to be that physically familiar with someone. It looks nice.

“That’s what I said,” Jemma offers. “Brooding.”

Skye grins at her. Then winks. “Aww, Ward, do you have mangst?”

“What the hell is mangst?” Ward asks after a long enough pause that Jemma imagines he’s trying to wish himself away telepathically. Professionally, she’s disappointed that it didn’t work but, personally, she’s quite relieved. She’s fairly certain Fitz’s nerves couldn’t cope with a randomly teleporting colleague.

Jemma claps her hands together. “Who wants to play another game?” She tries to catch May’s eye. “Agent May? Scrabble?”

“Seriously?” Skye scoffs. “You think May plays _Scrabble_?”

“Actually, I’m excellent at scrabble” May says, sitting down opposite Skye and resting her hands on her knees primly, like she’s a ballerina not… well, Jemma’s not sure exactly what she is, but it’s very impressive.

“Yay,” Jemma says, and goes to get the board.

***

“You could have woken me up,” Fitz grumbles, a couple of hours later, folding down into a grumpy pile of boy between her and Ward. There’s not really any room there, but Fitz doesn’t seem to care. “I never get to have any fun.”

“Oh really?” Jemma demands. “Because you’re such a ray of sunshine when someone wakes you in the middle of the night.”

“Shut up, I am,” Fitz says. “I’m a whole damn sun, not just a ray.”

Next to her, Ward snorts. Jemma looks at him sideways, flashing him a grin that she hopes is too quick for Fitz to see.

“Hey, I saw that,” Fitz tells her.

Whoops.

“Stop complaining,” she tells him, and tips her letters board around so he can see them. “And help me find a word with two Zs and a Y.”

“Tizzy,” Fitz says without looking at her letters. “Fuzzy. Dizzy. Muzzy. Need I go on?”

Jemma glares at him. She hates it when he does that. “Shut up,” she mutters, and starts laying down tiles.

***

They’re flying east, so the sun comes up early this morning. Jemma still feels wired and suspects she’ll feel that way for the rest of the day, but Skye’s more asleep than not behind the curtain of her hair, and Fitz has been snoring since they switched to playing snap.

“So this is where everyone is.” Agent Coulson’s voice is soft, amused. He’s wearing his suit, of course, but he hasn’t put his tie on yet. It makes Jemma feel better about being here in her pyjamas with an engineer dribbling on her thigh.

“Good morning, sir,” Jemma says. “Would you like some coffee?”

Behind Coulson, Skye wakes up enough to roll her eyes and mouth something that Jemma assumes is advice to be less of a suck up.

Jemma sticks her tongue out. 

“That’s kind of you, Jemma,” Coulson says. “But no, thank you.”

She never knows how to feel when he uses her first name. It makes her feel a little strange, like going on an out of school trip and suddenly being allowed to call a teacher by _their_ first time. She likes it, though. His eyes always soften when he says it and she enjoys that.

“No?” May asks, finally looking up from where she’s been studying her cards for the last few minutes, as though looking for the hidden tactics that will stop her from losing quite so badly. “There’s a cutthroat game going down out here.”

Coulson smiles at her. He looks tired, little lines around his eyes. “I’d be in the way,” he says, turning to go.

“No!” Jemma protests, pleased when the others join in, even Ward. Fitz makes a startled snorting noise, which Jemma takes as agreement. 

“No, sir, please stay.” When he turns his attention back to her, she smiles as winningly as she knows how. “We have an odd number without you, anyway.”

Coulson pauses for a moment, and Jemma’s sure he’s going to turn them down, point out that you don’t need an even number for snap. She’s surprised by how much she hopes he doesn’t, how worried she is suddenly about him being all alone while they’re out here having fun.

“Well, if it’ll even things up,” he says at last, and sits down cross-legged and a little stiff next to May. “What are we playing?”

/End

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this before 'Repairs' aired and showed Team Board Game Night. Being reverse-Jossed is a weird feeling! This fic is therefore set before that episode.


End file.
